resawn floorboards (from old joists)

What planet are you on? Is this a new Drivel sock puppet?

Pulled enough of it totally rotten out of this house.

And others.

PLENTY of knots in it.

Reply to
The Natural Philosopher
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Bwahaha.

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£30 per square meter

I can get oak for less than that..a lot less.

Its about £30 a cubic foot. That's a raw lumber price at say 25mm thickness (planed to 19mm) of around 75p a sq foot. Or maybe £7.50 a square meter. OK sawing and planing takes it up a LOT, but not that much.

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claim £13 a square meter.

Id say £20 is nearer for most places I've looked.

And lack of spindle moulders

Reply to
The Natural Philosopher

They had moulding planes and machine made moulding. Main reason they didnt T&G the boards is they saw no need to, so didnt spend the money. Many economies were made then that wouldnt be now, and vice versa.

NT

Reply to
NT

I can understand that applying to new wood, but old dry timber?

NT

Reply to
NT

The end grain looks decidedly woolly to me, unlike e.g. European Redwood, where growth rings are sharply defined. I still think it's some kind of spruce, not unlike today's studding but from a larger section. If so, it's a difficult timber to machine cleanly and won't wear well.

, but

This stuff is 12" wide, so I assume it will be for 2 x 6" boards.

He'd be sharpening the cutters every five minutes if it's spruce. I think that's one of the reasons it's essentially a structural timber.

Reply to
Stuart Noble

I can't imagine new floorboards from old joists will have the same patina as old original floorboards. I would want to see a sample first.

Victorian houses get dismantled and the boards reclaimed so keep looking. Another thing to bear in mind, is that it is often the case that floorboards from upstairs are thinner than those downstairs.

mark

Reply to
mark

Pitch pine is a different ball game altogether. Twice the weight of ordinary softwood and so resinous it hardly needs a finish. My Viccy balusters and newel posts are made from it, and they look a treat. However, the grain pattern is spectacular to say the least.

Reply to
Stuart Noble

I'm wondering the same about you. I've lots of experience of London Victorian houses. And only speak from what I've seen. You'll get plenty of knots in cosmetic timber including floorboards - but not in joists, etc.

Crap design of house, then. Plenty of those around. No wood is immune from rot if the conditions are right for it.

Reply to
Dave Plowman (News)

So give the URL so we can compare. Plus of course, if you already have pine, you may want to match it.

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they claim £13 a square meter.

More bollocks. HTF do you think they made all those mouldings? By hand?

Reply to
Dave Plowman (News)

Thank you all for your comments many of which are very helpful.

Just to clarify; I want to build in sympathy with the rest of the house. This means no T+G (and no chipboard of course). It means using boards similar to the ones I already have even though better quality ones might be available.

I deally I would use salvaged Victorian floorboard, but resawn joists is also an option it seems.

thanks,

Robert

Reply to
Robert Laws

But oak isn't to everybody's taste aesthetically. Visually I find it a bit bland (yes, even quarter sawn), plus it reminds me of schools and official buildings.

Reply to
Stuart Noble

Robert Laws wrote: xxx

Why not tongue and groove? The difference wont show, but if the wood does expand or contract there wont be so many draughts. Or does the secret nailing stop the groove being an expansion joint?

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on this subject when improving victorian floors is it a good idea to put kingspan under them to insulate them and should we put a plastic vapour barrier on top of the kingspan or would that trap any spills of water in the house and cause more rot than the condensations it's supposed to stop?

[g]
Reply to
george (dicegeorge)

I also wonder if this cheap oak TNP goes on about is available in the same widths as was common with Victorian pine? Narrower just doesn't look right in many rooms. And of course T&G will be narrower by nature.

Reply to
Dave Plowman (News)

Think you'll have problems getting T&G with the same perceived width of board.

Reply to
Dave Plowman (News)

I did just that in the post stoopid.

Plus of course, if you already have

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A lot of them, yes.

Its not actually that hard.

I've done similar here.

Reply to
The Natural Philosopher

So you did. Now compare prices like for like. Including lengths available.

I'll give you a hint. There are no joints in my floorboards on the ground floor as built. All continuous lengths.

Reply to
Dave Plowman (News)

So buy NEW pine. Its even cheaper, if you must. I don't like it. It reminds me of schools and official buildings. But then I am of a certain age..

Or how about Maple? Iroco? Sapele? Tulipwood? ... there's a hundred better woods than Pine, which really only has one virtue. It grows relatively fast, so its cheap.

BUT since a large part of the cost is machining, not the actual wood, it doesn't make an appreciable difference to the price.

A typical 'Naice door' in solid wood is between £150 and $£250 for e.g. a Victorian style panelled door. Wood cost pre machining might be £15 softwood or £30 for top class hardwood.

Now if the company that makes them takes wood cost + labour cost times margin, - say 45%, that should mean a real oak door is only about £25 more than a pine one..

Of course if you buy RETAIL, it all get marked up according to how stupid they think you are.

Pine is the best of the softwoods, but all softwoods are crap really. They all move around under humidity changes immensely, and they all suffer from extremely variable density across the summer/winter growth rings, leading to a very uneven wear pattern in time.

In reality, wood tends to cost what it takes to get it cut down and transported and kiln dried and seasoned. Mostly its between £20 a cu ft and £40 a cu ft for the more common species, with higher prices for the exotic and rare stuff. A felled tree on site is *almost* worthless. Unless its elm yew, walnut, cherry..even oak and beech are not worth collecting for a single tree. You want a forest full to make it worth while.

As I said a cu ft of wood, sawn & planed with no wastage, is around 40 square foot of boarding. or 4 square meters. take out wastage (cracked, split, knotted stuff) and its 1.5-2 square meters, but even so, the actual wood cost of a planed 19mm board is only about £10-£20 a square meter *if that*. Yet typically its sold at £30-£40..because people believe it costs that! Well it does if you don't have the right machinery and pay staff stupid wages, but it can be got for a lot less.

My point is, why bother with rubbish wood, when good wood is almost the same price, and if its being sold to you higher, go somewhere that machines raw lumber, and buy there instead.

Reply to
The Natural Philosopher

Its available in whatever width you want. Ive got 3" wide stuff, 4", 5",

7", 9"..as I said, I bought a job lot of beaded 19mm t&G. If I want plane planks I mill off the edges. When I have designed the bookshelves I will go and get it machined to order into the correct sized planks. Extra wide stuff is more expensive, because it has to go across a whole tree bole, but there you are talking 20" and upwards.

Good wood is NOT expensive, or not as expensive as people think it is, and the people recycling Victorian pine, are laughing all the way to the bank.

By and large they buy cheaper and sell dearer than the timber machiners do for new wood, and the only downside is they lose the odd cutter blade on a nail.

Reply to
The Natural Philosopher

Its a good idea to decide what you actually really want, rather than how you are going to achieve it, and then look at all the ways of doing it, and pick the cheapest..my house is pure repro. It looks 600 years old. Its 8 years old.

Its got some reclaimed ok, a lot of new, and some reclaimed brick where it shows (internal fireplaces). but the chimnys are pure new brick and block inside, because from a distance, with the right mortars it looks JUST the same as an old one, just a little bit neater, but not much, because the bricklayer who did it was pissed when he wasn't stoned.

So its full of Olde Worlde Character. ;-)

Reply to
The Natural Philosopher

I plan to add 100mm celotex under the floor wedged between joists. Indeed Building Control will probably demand this sicne I wil be "renovating a thermal unit".

I'll be nailing them striaght down with old fashioned flooring brads.

T+G is not quite invisible: the board edges are all exactly the same heigth so you lose that slight uneveness which is part fo the character. Also it makes lifting boards for access more difficult.

I wodnered about the need for an underfloor vapour barrier. I agree that it's more likely to be a trap for spilled water. In fact I worry aboty teh celotex on thos egrounds also.

Robert

Reply to
Robert Laws

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